Pro Tools Maximum number allowed of latest MOTU Express 128s is 7 ??

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by TNM

Again I understand this, but native plugins use up voices and I want to use native plugins during mixing

To be clear, voice is i/o point of the mixer. Whether you are using DSP or Native plugins has nothing to do with it. Every stream that inputs to the mixer needs a voice. So for every mono input you need one voice and for every 5.1 input you need six voicees. So once you are in your DSP mixer you can do DSP processing "for free" (voice-wise) but if you go out of the mixer and then get back in, you need another voice(s) for your second trip to the mixer.

So; if you go DSP/native/DSP/native/DSP you need to go out and in of the mixer multiple times, thus "eating" voices unnecessarily. You can avoid this by not using DSP plugins on the tracks where you need to use native plugins such as VI. If you only use native plugins and no DSP on your track, you are not using additional voices.

With that said, HDX1 has 256 voices and HDX2 has 512 voices currently (assuming you are working on 48k as most VI libraries are not recorded in 96k). Have you run out of voices many times lately?